3
"3" is the seventh episode of the second season of The X-Files. Synopsis With Scully missing, Mulder closes in on an "Unholy Trinity" of vampiresque killers and finds himself falling for a mysterious woman who is the prime suspect. Summary HOLLYWOOD HILLS LOS ANGELES,CALIFORNIA 12:41 A.M. A man is drinking wine outside his house and surveying a fire in Malibu Canyon, directly below him. He heads inside and remarks that there is ash from the fire in his wine to a woman leaning against an interior door frame. She lights a candle as he tells her he doesn't normally send his family away to leave him free for extramarital affairs (he implies that), and she softly cuts him off. Fast forward to them in a jacuzzi. Though it starts off alright for him, she eventually bites into his arm. He throws her back, and she gets back onto him as two other guys jump into the tub. Somebody raises a syringe, and his ashy wine glass breaks before we head into the opening sequence... ACT ONE: Back in DC, Mulder enters his old office, which has been left plastic-covered and abandoned since the X Files were shut down. He goes about removing the wrap and flipping his calender to the proper month before heading to a file cabinet, where he files the X-File opened on Scully's abduction, along with her glasses and badge. He removes her necklace and stares at it briefly before his phone rings. Cut to LA, in the house of the man from the opener, which is now filled with uniforms. One of them heads outside to tell Mulder to leave, but Mulder goes through the tape anyway, saying he doesn't care about who gets the credit for the case. He continues on to say that in the past year there have been six similar murders in two states, and that by the end of the week there will be two more deaths and the killers will have left the area. Apparently Mulder's been tracking the case. He goes on to state case details: smashed mirrors, victim drained of blood, writing on the wall in his blood, and he then gives a profile. He says that the killers view themselves as the Unholy Trinity. The cop, apparently moved by Mulder's knowledge, apologizes and starts to introduce him to a detective standing by. Mulder interrupts and says he's working alone. The cop admits he's working on limited resources and Mulder says he just requires one thing... ...which is apparently either a phone book or an office, because we then cut to Mulder calling a local blood blank under the guise of "Marty Mulder" from their payroll service asking about a W4 form. The woman on the line asks if he's talking about "Frank." Cut to the Hollywood Blood Bank. Mulder searches it, flashlight and gun in tow, and heads downstairs, where he interrupts a man who is sucking blood from a collection bag. The man tries to escape; Mulder brings him down and cuffs him. Cut. The blood sucking man is screaming about the lights in an interrogation room, curled up in a ball on the floor as two annoyed-looking cops ask him questions which he doesn't answer. Mulder walks in and casually sets a red light on the table the cops are leaning on, plugs it in, and flips the lights. Now in red, and apparently able to function again, the man cuts open his hand with a fingernail and sucks the blood. Both cops wince. The man tells them that he'll only talk to Mulder, so the cops leave. The man tells him "He is the father, I am the son, she is the unholy spirit." He says that he didn't murder the man from the opening (Garret Lorey), comparing it to a snake eating a fly. He further states he will never die. Mulder looks skeptical. He looks slightly more skeptical when the man states he "can't be seen in a mirror" as Mulder is looking at his reflection...in a mirror. Mulder, not commenting on this or the man's continued rambling, mentions the gas chamber and offers to take that off the table in exchange for the names of his two cohorts. He refuses because they are the only people who can kill him. Mulder says he knows what can kill him. Fast forward. It's now day-break and Mulder's holding a roll of tin foil, and he says he'll cover the windows in exchange for the information. He refuses. Mulder leaves. Back in the interrogation room, we watch as time lapses and the sun strikes the man. He starts to smoke and burn. ACT TWO: We open back in the interrogation room, and the man is dead. A guy in a white coat says what Scully would normally be saying, and suggests that the man has porphyria. Mulder disagrees and now seems to believe that this man was a vampire. The guy in the white coat says that he's upsetting him "on several levels." Mulder ignores this and leans down to look at the dead man's arm, where he sees what the guy in the white coat guesses is an ink stamp. He peels away some skin to reveal some lettering. Cut to Club Tepes, which appears to be a club for people with a lot of piercings and strange hairstyles. Mulder spots a woman who is looking in a powder tin without a mirror. They make eye contact and she speaks to him. He sits and they converse. She probes and guesses that he's lost someone. Mulder looks somewhat shaken, and he notes that she has a syringe in her purse. He quotes the Biblical line they've been painting in their victim's homes, and she completes it. She then continues her psych evaluation of him and all but admits that she's involved with the murders. Despite this, Mulder follows her to a more private section of the club. A man at the bar, whom we'd seen previously in Lorey's house, eyes them as they go and bites his hand. The woman introduces herself as Kristen as she pricks her finger with one of the syringes in her purse, and she offers her finger to Mulder. He refuses it. She gets up and walks to a man nearby, who takes her proffered finger. She leads him away. Mulder follows and the man at the bar watches. Cut a bit ahead. Mulder's followed her to a restaurant, and he looks in a back window to see her sucking the man's neck. A car drives by, and the lights shine on the building, attracting both Mulder and Kristen's attention. They make eye contact and she runs. He attempts to chase, finds the door locked, and runs around the front, where he is assaulted and knocked down a flight of stairs by the man who Kristen had picked up at the bar. Apparently he consented. Mulder groans from his landing on the pavement. Cut ahead. The consenting man is back in the restaurant and calling for Kristen. He gets socked by the man from the bar. Both Kristen and the man from the bar fall on him and...eat him. Or drink him, I guess. Then the scene closes. ACT THREE: Mulder's back at the restaurant, this time standing and accompanied by a ton of cops. A forensic dentist has shown up, at his request. The dentist exams while Mulder searches around. He finds Kristen's powder case and a tin of raspberry sauce with some red prints on it. Mulder tells one of the cops to get the fingerprints before heading back to the dentist, who tells him that the bites are human and made by three people. Cut. We're back in "Marty" Mulder's temporary office space, where he's looking at a DMV record of Kristen and the x file labeled "Trinity Killers." He notes that Kristen's two previous addresses were in Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, which is where the two previous Trinity murders were located. "The Unholy Spirit," he mutters. Zoom. We're now at Kristen's place with Mulder and more cops executing a search warrant. They find a box of veterinary needles and what appears to be bread filled with blood in the oven. Mulder quickly shuts the oven door and states that Kristen is gone and won't be coming back. We cut to 2:15 in the morning. Kristen is entering her house and turns to find Mulder there. He identifies himself and warns her the cops are after her. Kristen questions why he's there alone. He doesn't give an answer. She notes that a change in the wind will bring the Malibu Canyon fire their way. They then talk about her involvement in the case, and she says her father beat her, and then proceeds to recount an incident where her father knocked two of her teeth out and she tasted her blood running down her throat--remarking it was the only thing that told her she was alive. She says she met John (The Son) in Chicago and he beat her too. Apparently at one point he split her lip and she bit his lip and they then got involved with she calls "blood sports." She goes onto say one day John came home with two other guys and it got "unnatural." She ran to Memphis and its implied that they followed her each subsequent move. Now she's "tired of running." She then pulls a cross from Mulder's neck. It's Scully's necklace. She expresses that she hopes he finds the person he's lost. Mulder tells her the person she lost (John) is dead. He says she should come back to the station with him. She disagrees and says he should get cleaned up. He agrees. Cut ahead. Mulder's shaving sans mirror. He complains. Kristen takes his razor and says she'll do it. She knicks him. He stops her from licking the blood, saying it's "not who you are." They proceed to kiss...rather passionately. The camera pans and we see someone watching through the window. It's John. ACT FOUR: It's 5:47 AM and Kristen is walking through her house. John grabs her. He tells her that she "can live forever" and that "we come back." She seems mildly disturbed but says nothing as he grabs two large knives. He continues to ramble to her, expressing his love and telling her she needs to kill "him." Meanwhile, Mulder, the him in question, is sleeping in a large chair. He wakes up as Kristen approaches with one of the large knives. She tells him he has to go, blaming it on the fire. As he gets up she starts stabbing at something, and he dives behind the chair, watching as the man from the bar falls. Mulder gapes, and she tells him that John isn't dead. He takes her and they both run for it. As they head for the door, John jumps him, slamming Kristen into the wall as he does. They scuffle, Mulder wins, and he ties him up with a lamp cord. Then he grabs Kristen and goes for the garage and the car in it. As he starts it, a woman jumps onto the hood, breaks through the glass, and drags him out. Meanwhile, Kristen's moved to the driver's seat and backs up, sending both Mulder and the woman to the floor. Mulder kicks her back and Kristen slams the car into her. She dies. Mulder asks Kristen if she's okay and she says she won't leave without John. Mulder moves to get him. As he does, Kristen drives away, and Mulder makes chase, eventually finding the car abandoned on the side of the road. Cut back to the house. Kristen is pouring gasoline inside her garage and around her house. John tells her she can't kill him because she isn't one of them. Kristen says she is and lights a match. John shrieks as the flame hits the ground. An explosion rocks the area, and Mulder sees it. Cut ahead. Mulder's sitting on the grass while a bunch of firefighters comb through the area that was once Kristen's house. One of them approaches him and says that they found four bodies, just ashes and bones. He walks away when Mulder says nothing. Mulder stares away before pulling Scully's cross from around his neck. Gripping it tightly, he turns his eyes back to the smoke. Background Information *Perrey Reeves, who plays Kristen Kilar, was David Duchovny's real-life girlfriend at the time of filming. *Club Tepes is named for Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. *This is one of the only episodes of the series in which Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully) does not appear. *Kristen Kilar's last name could be an allusion to Wojciech Kilar who composed the score for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992 – directed by Francis Ford Coppola). Links and References Guest Stars *Frank Military as John/The Son *Perrey Reeves as Kristen Kilar *Frank Ferrucci as Det. Nettles *Tom McBeath as Det. Munson *Gustavo Moreno as The Father *Justina Vail as The Unholy Spirit *Malcolm Stewart as Commander Carver *Ken Kramer as Dr. Browning *Roger Allford as Garrett Lore *Richard Yee as David Yung *Brad Loree as Fireman *John Tierney as Dr. Jacobs *David Livingstone as Guard *Guyle Frazier as Officer References Hollywood Hills; Los Angeles; California; wildfire; vampire; LAPD; drawstring pants; Gunther's disease; Fourth-degree burns; Congenital erythropoetic porphyria; photosensitivity; Heme deficiency; AIDS; Club Tepes; veterinary needle; Portland; Oregon; Portland Police Department; homicide report; Memphis; Tennessee; Memphis Police Department; Homicide Division; death report; RA; red wine; blood; blood sports; Category:X-Files episodes